


Blank Space

by sunaddicted



Series: 007 Games Fics 2k18 [6]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Depression, Gen, M/M, Novel, Origin Story, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Relationship, Pulp Spy Novels, References to Depression, Spy Novels, Writer's Block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:16:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaddicted/pseuds/sunaddicted
Summary: James hadn't accepted that time.Neither the second.Nor the third.





	1. Death of the Author

**Author's Note:**

> This fills in prompt nr. 68 of the Anonymous Prompt Exchange: "Bond writes pulpy spy novels on the side under a pseudonym"

_Death of the Author_

It had all started after a compulsory appointment with one of the shrinks that dwelt in Psych - second only to Medical, when it came to MI6 most hated departments; his career had been only at the beginning back then, he had just brought to term his first kill and James didn't know how to tell the way too young psychiatrist that no, he didn't feel any guilt over the life he had put an abrupt end to: it might have been the first man he had murdered since becoming part of the secret service, but he hadn't become a Commander of the Navy without spilling any blood - the shrink was a few years too late to catch any whisper of existential crisis.

But, to be fair to the guy, he had given a rather stubborn agent a good suggestion - an instrument to elaborate on his own whatever might be bothering him after a particularly hard mission: he had told him to put things in paper, so that he could look at them from another perspective and analyse them without baring his soul to someone else.

If the other shrinks knew that one of their colleagues had encouraged an agent to work alone on his issues, they would have probably skinned him - James was endlessly grateful, instead.

Not that he had taken the piece of advice seriously since the beginning: he already wrote reports about his missions and he had never found that it particularly helped him with making sense of whatever horrible thing he had experienced out in the field. James warmed up to the method slowly, once he realised that nobody would be reading those tales - that he could skip over things he didn't need to see on paper and indulge on others that he wished to remember in greater detail: they were personal and he could do whatever he wanted with them.

That was when he started fixing his mistakes on paper, changing the course of the mission to be closer to what it should have been; it made him feel better - especially when even through fiction it was hard correcting what had gone wrong - and it helped him to develop a greater eye for the dynamics of a particular situation, forcing him to think and reflect on all the variables that could potentially stand in his way and make a mess of his plans.

It didn't cure him of his rash and impulsive nature - nothing could, really - but it helped.

A little.

Well, James didn't think that anyone in MI6 thought that he had gotten any better but he didn't care about them: he knew himself and he could see enough improvement that he felt proud about his development in a better agent - arguably the best MI6 had had in a while.

And that was everything James had wanted to be: he hadn't planned on becoming a novelist - surprisingly, though, he loved it. He loved crafting characters that could be as cocky and as shrewd as he wanted them to be, to give them a heart of darkness but enough redeeming qualities that the readers couldn't help but sympathise with the villains; he loved throwing shade at the world of espionage, criticising his line of work with an honesty that he never could openly voice in front of his colleagues; he loved giving hope even when all he had to give were tales of terror and twisted humanity.

James had never been so grateful about someone snooping through his things, breaching his privacy with so much carelessness that it had made him bristle with a deep-seated annoyance he rarely felt - to be honest, he hadn't decked the woman only because she looked like she could have been someone's grandmother and even he had some form of self control. Oh, but he had shot her quite the glare; even as she had introduced herself with a card that stated she was employed by a small publisher and had told him they would be interested in printing one of his works - which had needed quite some polishing but apparently his prose had been the right balance between thrilling suspense and romance so purple that it almost was too cheesy to read.

James hadn't accepted that time.

Neither the second.

Nor the third.

By that time, James had figured out that the woman was a regular customer of the little cafe he had gotten attached to and it didn't take him long to admit to himself that she would eventually wear him down.

The fifth time she offered, James accepted with a sigh and asked her for her email, so that he could send her one of the few manuscripts he had typed up: it was based on one of his first missions as a Double-Oh and, therefore, it was packed with his younger self's abundant idiocy and cockyness that, admittedly, didn't really made him a likeable character on paper - or so he had thought: apparently readers ate it up when the hero was a complex bastard that had to work his way into their hearts and earn himself the readers' approval.

James didn't pretend to understand any of that and he just blinked at the cheque he was presented with when his first book - _It's Never Paris_ (he still cringed at the title but someone had explained to him why it was a strategic marketing choice) - had sold a thousand copies in ten days.

Not that he had needed the money - he was paid more than enough for risking his life on the regular - but it still had been shocking to realise that there were people who thought worth it spending a tenner on his story.

James didn't keep anything of what he earned as a novelist: each time he was paid, he picked a charity and he donated the money - hospitals, orphanages, research.. anything that piqued his interest and that came back clean after a thorough background check.

He had no intentions of financing frauds.

With his second novel - _Twice Dead in Moscow_ (he did the smart thing and didn't point out that he had risked dying way more than just two times while on a mission in Russia) - James started to receive what his publisher called fanmail and, really, people didn't know that his ego didn't need any more stroking: to put it in M's words, he soon wouldn't be able to walk past the door if his ego kept growing like some kind of weed.

By the time his third book - _An Austrian Conspiracy_ (yes, he had given up on trying to suggest a title) - appeared in libraries, people had started to ask for signed copies and interviews; the first he could obviously do but his fans would just have to deal with the fact that they would never see his face: it already was dangerous enough being published, even if under a pseudonym - he certainly couldn't afford letting his face be linked to those novels.

Besides, he might not have been ashamed of his writing, but he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of MI6 learning about his little job on the side; he didn't really know why and he didn't even waste the time to actually understand his feelings regarding the matter, he just didn't want to be seen as anything else but the ruthless and womanizer agent that was admired by the whole agency for his ability to carry through even the toughest jobs.

His seventh novel - _Tokyo is Forever_ (he was ready to swear that the titles purposefully had been getting worse over the time because everyone at the publishing company knew just how much he hated them) - almost "broke his fanbase"; apparently his villain had been so loved that his readers couldn't cope with Irma Bunt's death and wanted him to know that they would really appreciate it if he brought her back to life.

James didn't resurrect her - he wrote spy novels, not fantasy ones: he couldn't even imagine how a bullet between the eyes couldn't have resulted in a rather permanent death - but he wrote a short story centred about her character that sold way more than even his publisher had expected.

Then 007 was sent on a mission to foil Le Chiffre's plans and Guillaume Lien disappeared from the literary scene - just as unexpectedly as Vesper had waltzed out of his life, drowned in a sundress so red that every time he recalled the event, James couldn't help thinking that there had been blood in the water.

* * *

Somewhere in a London suburb, a boy with a head full of numbers and a rather colourful imagination had nicked a battered copy of _Murder amidst the Dunes_ from his mother's bedside table and had absconded with it in the garden; she never let him peruse her library but if there was something that only made Gabriel Rathaway even more stubborn about doing something, it was being forbidden from doing it.

Once he started reading it, Gabriel understood why his mother had never let him put his hands on it: to put it plainly, it was a little too racy for a ten-year old boy (the idea of his mother reading that kind of stuff while his father snored or did the crossword next to her made Gabriel mildly uncomfortable) and the author sometimes went a little too deep in the detailing of torture scenes.

But he liked it. Sure, it made it a bit difficult to sleep that first night and he really could have done with less amorous interludes, but Gabriel had really enjoyed the story.

And even if he would never admit it, that day the seed of his future career was planted at the back of his mind as the printed words enchanted and ensnared him: one day, he was going to work for the Secret Service.

Much to his mother's future disappointment. 


	2. Love Journey of a Reader

_Love Journey of a Reader_

Gabriel's dream to be a spy didn't actually take consistency until he was out of university, freshly graduated in Computer Engineering and with a couple of patents already registered under his name and that, while hadn't made him particularly rich, had permitted him to move in a small flat situated in a slightly nicer neighbourhood than the one he had grown up in.

And, to be completely honest, Gabriel wasn't sure that he would have remembered his childhood fantasy of living the glamorous life of a spy if a couple of agents of MI6 hadn't knocked on his door a cold Sunday morning. The fact that he had a passion for a spot of hacking left and right wasn't exactly something that Gabriel advertised in his CV and when the two agents had introduced themselves, he knew that he had poked at something that he should have left alone.

He was too young and too smart to go to prison.

Apparently, MI6 thought the same.

Gabriel had never been so relieved about being given an ultimatum because while MI6 effectively had deprived him of the chance to choose what to do with his life, at least he had been given an alternative to being tossed into prison and accused of treason - or something like that: he wasn't sure whether breaching the firewalls of the Secret Service was charged as treason, maybe it had a different name.

Not that the end result would have been much different.

Gabriel had accepted with a small nod, knuckles white against the door that he was gripping way too hard in order to keep himself upright, and the agents had left him alone after promising him - in terms that made it sound more like a threat - that a car would be waiting for him the following morning at nine o'clock, sharp.

They didn't need to tell him plainly that the consequences would be rather dire if, for whatever reason, he didn't show his face.

That day, Gabriel had curled up on his battered couch - a monstrous green thing that his mother refused to sit upon whenever she came by to visit him and make sure he was surviving on more than instant ramen - and had re-read one of his favourite novels by Guillaume Lien; while growing up he had realised that the reality of the job must have been way harsher, there just was something gripping about the way the author told his characters' stories - the way he explores their motives and how the lines always sort of blurred.

If anyone asked Gabriel to describe Lien's stories in just a sentence, he would have said that there were no heroes: everyone was flawed and prone to making mistakes - there was no judgement in those stories, only the bare reality of human nature. It was something Gabriel could appreciate and even if he could easily admit that the prose wasn't exactly that of a Nobel literature prize candidate, Guillaume Lien talked about the world in shades of grey and bursts of colour - not the usually boring and inaccurate binary separation of black and white.

He just hoped that the job would be half as fascinating as it seemed from the books; Lien mostly focused on field duty and he rarely spent words on the whole frame of support that made those missions possible and safe: probably the man didn't know much about the inner workings of MI6 or if he did, he didn't have the confidence or the interest to write about them. Personally, Gabriel leaned towards the second option: the bit of hacking vaguely described in _The South-American Triangle_ had been woefully inaccurate and sometime around age 13, he wrote the man a letter offering to help him to describe a realistic hacking.

Guillaume Lien hadn't answered and Gabriel had tortured himself about having offended the man for at least a year and half before he realised that the man had stopped writing; the man had been quite the prolific writer and it was extremely unlikely that a year went by without at least a couple of his works being published.

It was the first time Gabriel had felt something akin to grief.

But he hadn't stopped loving those stories and, slowly, he had tracked down signed copies and a couple of novels that had been published when he had been quite young and that his mother had never bought.

Gabriel never in his life was as dedicated to another author as he had been to Lien.

"What are you reading, Q?" Eve quipped "I swear I've never seen you with something made out of actual paper in your hands" she teased.

Gabriel rolled his eyes - it still felt so strange, being called Q but he hadn't been Quartermaster even for a month and he had gotten the job only because Major Boothroyd had gotten severely injured in the explosion and had decided to retire "You've seen me working on paperwork"

"Everyone and their mothers know that getting rid of it is your crusade" she pointed out and swiftly plucked the battered paperback out of Q's hand, index finger thrust between the pages to keep the younger man's mark " _Terror in the Amazon_?" Eve read the title out aloud, an eyebrow arched as he skimmed her eyes over the blurb on the back "You read cheesy spy novels? Don't you have enough of spying here at work?"

"Despite the title, they're surprisingly deep" Q offered with a shrug.

Eve flicked the novel open "Oh, yeah. Very deep indeed" she said in a chuckle before clearing her throat "Richard cupped Helen's breasts and squeezed them softly, relishing in the wavering of her voice as she cried out his name and raked her nails through his short hair - you know, this porn is straighter than I thought you would like"

"You stumbled on a sex scene, it's not my fault" Q said and he grabbed his book back "And it actually is a very tense scene: Helen is an henchwoman of the story's main villain and after the author killed one of our favourite evil women, he can't be trusted not to kill again"

"Wait, wait.. This is part of a series"

Q nodded "A rather large one. Though, Lien suddenly stopped writing and his last book was published when he was 26"

Eve looked at the younger man, dark eyes studying his face "You're actually sorry that he stopped writing"

"They're good stories"

"If you say so" she sing-songed "It's not the kind of stuff I read: I have a thing for deeply existential and confusing Japanese writers" Eve explained "Now, not to ruin your break but you have an appointment at the National Gallery in front of Tanner's Fighting Temeraire"

"With whom?"

"The real deal" she sighed when Q only regarded her with an empty and confused look "The infamous 007"

"You mean the same 007 you shot off of a moving train?"

"Rude" Eve scowled "But yes, the very same"

Q frowned "Sorry, did I miss something? I thought he was... dead"

Eve shrugged and raised her hands with her palms upwards, as if to say "Me too but that's how it is" - soon enough, the young Quartermaster would learn that few people could be as stubborn as James Bond was when it came about surviving against all odds.

* * *

James had been shot at a lot of times in his career but he rarely had let himself fall down without putting up a fight; as his body had inexorably fallen down towards the icy water, James had closed his eyes and had waited for the impact: he was tired - so tired and he just wanted to go to sleep and wake up with Vesper's vibrant eyes looking down at him, mischievous and alive instead than wide open in terror as her last breath left her lungs in a flurry of bubbles.

But James hadn't died.

He had washed up on a shore and he had barely made the conscious decision of staying dead, at least on paper; it wasn't as if he had anyone at home who would miss him - not even his readers who he had abandoned a couple of years before without giving them any sort of explanation or closure.

But he couldn't have done so, not even if he had wanted to: after Vesper had died, his inspiration had flickered out of life like a snuffed candle and the words barely came even to write his reports; he had thought he could leave MI6 and become a full-time novelist - it had been such a real possibility for a moment, as they had lounged on a yacht and talked about their future while soaking up the Venetian sun.

He could barely recall the last time he had felt so at peace with himself - he really should have been expecting that something would come and tear his dream apart.

And not even a near-death experience had been enough to rekindle his inspiration for writing - he had tried. He really had. But every time James had put a pen to the paper, the words wouldn't come, even if he could feel them choked up in his throat: no matter how hard he stared at the blank page or how much he drank to forget his misery, nothing helped him to get past the whiteness staring back at him.

In a way, the explosion came as a relief: he had an excuse to leave the eternal summer of the paradise he had absconded to and get back into the action, a foolish part of himself hoping that it would help him to get his writing back.

Maybe.

It was worth trying, anyway.

And so he had found himself sitting in the middle of the National Gallery, centuries of beauty staring down at him as he waited for his new Quartermaster; James had been mildly saddened by the fact that the old Major wouldn't be there to banter with him any longer, but he couldn't help being happy about the fact that the man hadn't died in the explosion.

Small mercies, as people would say.

"It always makes me feel a little melancholy - a grand old war ship, being ignominiously hauled away to scrap. The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see?"

James glanced at the young man next to him: did he look like someone who wanted to talk? No, he didn't - he knew that "A bloody big ship" he answered in a sharp voice, uncaring about how rude he sounded "Excuse me"

"007"

It couldn't be.

"I'm your new Quartermaster"

A boy. He was just a boy - too young to get tangled up in darkness and blood "You must be joking" it turned out that no, he wasn't and James had all the intentions of pointing out to M that they weren't desperate to the point of putting children in danger - or maybe they were, after that the Headquarters had been bombed.

James watched Q leave, nose thrust up in the air as he admired the paintings surrounding him and the familiar corner of a book cover peeking from a pocket of his parka - a detail that left him reeling, blinking in surpirse: as far as he knew, none of his colleagues had ever read one of his novels.

He suddenly was curious to know what Q was in it - what had pushed him to pick it up.  


	3. Birth of a New Era

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter fills in two prompts from the Classic Bond prompt table (001):  
> \- Bond girl  
> \- "Now pay attention, 007"

_Birth of a New Era_

James tapped his pencil on what should have been paperwork important enough that Q had sat him down on an abandoned desk in his branch and had told him to not leave until it was filled in. Had it been anyone else, James would have glared at them with annoyance prickling under his skin and would have stalked away without paying them any attention, confident that they wouldn't try to stop a Double-Oh from leaving.

It was Q instead and somehow, the younger man had managed to earn himself his trust during the whole Skyfall affair: he was young but clearly skilled at what he did, even if he lacked practical experience.

James hadn't even glanced at the paperwork, but he had sat down at least, and had neatly turned the sheets of paper on their blank side, so that he could scribble on them - well, that had been the intention.

Despite having abundant material he could work with, the words still wouldn't come. So, he kept tapping his pencil and observed from afar Q and Moneypenny animatedly talk about something; they accompanied their words with the shaking of their heads, the dramatic shooting up of an eyebrow, lips twisting and pulling at the corners, fingers jabbing at and twirling through the air - it was fascinating, how expressive they were.

They would make perfect regulars in his stories, both of them quirky and complicated and able to reason with someone like him - with someone like the his fictional self, the pigheaded and rebellious agent Richard Doe; he had purposefully chosen a surname as unremarkable as his own, something that would make the readers think of anonymity even if the character didn't hide behind a code number like he did.

Moneypenny would have definitely been the deadly and seducing agent partnered with Richard, all sharp teasing grins and confidence; she would have been smart and not at all afraid to talk back to Richard - maybe she would have pointed a gun at him too, threatening to blow his kneecap into smithereens if he didn't take a moment to think the plan through; she would have undoubtedly save Richard's arse and gracefully remind him of the fact if he dared to open his mouth; she would have been a good friend, someone Richard could have turned to in case of need.

It wasn't hard to imagine, not when Moneypenny was all that and more for him in his real life - not just in an hypothetical fictional one that was bound to stay trapped amidst the pages, taking life only when someone decided to read them.

Losing Skyfall had made James understand a lot of things that he had refused to acknowledge up to the moment when he had raised his gaze to watch the flames consume the old manor, while he held in his arms the cooling corpse of a woman that had moulded him into the man he was; James had been alone for a long time, way before M had died by the hand of her past mistakes coming to haunt her: Skyfall had lost the connotation of home when his parents had died and while he was fond of Kinkaid, the man had his own family.

But he had found a sort of substitute in MI6.

The other Double-Ohs understood him better than he was uncomfortable to admit to himself and while he didn't enjoy everyone's company - he would never get over his dislike for 009, especially since the man tried to cosy up a little too much with the new Quartermaster - and he considered only a few of them his friends, at least he didn't feel lonely in their midst.

Then there was Eve and after he had managed to suppress the instinctive need to recoil from someone who had shot him, James had found in her more than just a woman he could spend a hot night amidst the sheets and forget about in the morning: he had found a friend, caring and firm, calling him out on his bullshit even as she offered him a shot of whiskey and sat the next to him to listen to him whine and be every inch of the bitter old man everyone accused him of being.

And Q...

James hadn't managed to really get a reading on his own feelings about Q: he was intrigued by the young man who virtually was nobody outside of MI6, just an unknown walking around London's crowded streets and who had two cats to feed - and a mortgage. That was all that he knew about the other's private life and James hadn't yet planned on breaking into his flat in order to pry his secrets from him, which didn't mean that he wasn't curious but he thought that it was worth it waiting for Q to slowly reveal himself.

James perked up a little as Bill Tanner strode in past him - clearly focused on the folder he was carrying around, since he didn't spare the time to greet him as usual - and joined Eve and Q in their discussion.

What were they talking about?

James looked down at the blank paper, then back up to the three of them - maybe...

Determined, James squared his shoulders and tightened his grip on the pencil; he started jotting down ideas, putting his wonderings and hypothesis down on paper instead of keeping them trapped in his mind - it didn't feel terribly natural but it was something, it looked like a snippet of something at least.

James grinned even as his hand stuttered, a brief moment of indecision filling him before he chose the phrasing that was closest to what he meant - it could be changed later anyway, writing wasn't set in stone and nobody would be reading it for a very long time.

* * *

_Bel Rowley wasn't paid nearly enough to do her job and babysitter stubborn agents, who thought themselves to be too good to work teamed up with someone - especially a woman - and who reacted as if she had stabbed their mothers on their deathbed if she dared to point out they were wrong._

_No, she definitely needed a raise and until she didn't get one, Bel had all intentions of leaning back and watch her partners making absolute fools out of themselves: it was less stressing and she could further drive in the point that they were douchebags once she stepped in and solved the problem._

_Fast and efficiently._

_Bel had rationally known that she had chosen to work in a men's world, misogyny fuelled by movies and inaccurate documentaries that sold female spies as able to do their jobs only whoring themselves out and loosening men's tongues thanks to the honey between their legs - as if brains and ruthlessness weren't required as well._

_As if male agents didn't do exactly the same._

_Richard Doe was a glaring example of his men too could use sex on their marks and nobody commented on it - oh, no: they praised him for saving Queen and Country with his manly attributes and masculinity._

_It made Bel roll her eyes._

_Hard._

_But she also admired him, despite all of his flaws and nasty habits: he was determined and he gave his whole being to the missions he was assigned to and he trudged through them, no matter how many wounds he had been inflicted and how dark the bruises dotting his skin were._

_It was the kind of dedication that-_

"Now pay attention, 007"

James slammed his arms over the paperwork and looked up at Q with a cheeky grin "A bit hard whenever I hear your dulcet tunes but I'll try for you, my dear Quartermaster"

Q rolled his eyes and straightened his glasses, pushing them up the slope of his nose "Refrain from that kind of comments, please: you sound like you came out of a spy novel"

James tried to hide how that comment ensnared his focus and he just let his grin go wider, brighter, more teasing "And who says that's not what I'm trying to accomplish?" He quipped before he nodded towards Q encouraging him to go on.

"Thank you" the younger man said sarcastically "I just wanted to warn you that I'm leaving for an impromptu meeting but when I come back, I want to see that paperwork finished"

"Yessir"

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, I have played a bit with the "Bond girl" prompt and took it at the large lol - btw, if the name Bel Rowley rings familiar it's because it's from "The Hour" in which Ben Whishaw's character - Freddy Lion - calls her Moneypenny ♡


	4. Rebirth Of A Hero

_Rebirth Of A Hero_

James was surprised when he was welcomed in his former small publishing company with open arms; the old lady that had been his editor had retired but there still were plenty of employers that remembered him and they hadn't kicked him out when he had told them he had a new novel to propose them - a little shorter than his past ones and definitely rustier in his opinion, but they seemed to be enthusiastic about it nonetheless.

"We still get fanmail"

James hadn't really known how to process that: it had left him reeling and oddly touched, still unable to believe that people truly had loved his stories - completely self-indulgent tales that hadn't been written for the public, not even after Richard Doe and his adventures had become popular.

Maybe that was what his readers had appreciated about his stories: James never made any concessions to their opinions, he wrote only what he felt like was consistent with Richard's character and the world he knew more about than his readers could probably guess.

"I'd like to sign all the books of the first edition" it was going to be a small one - a thousand or so of copies, just like it had happened for _It's Never Paris_  - and James didn't blame the publishing company: he had disappeared for a while and they needed to test the market to see whether there still was interest in what he wrote; his first novel had been a surprising success but the same couldn't be predicted for his return.

"That's a smart move"

It really had been.

James watched with hawkish eyes as Q unwrapped his gift painstakingly slow, his long and elegant fingers careful and clearly trying not to tear the paper; it wasn't even nice paper - a solid blue and thick, held in place by tape - and he was tempted to just rip it open for the other man before one of them died of old age.

"Oh God" Q pushed his glasses up to rub at his eyes before he looked again at the cover "Oh. My. God"

Since they had started seeing one another - they weren't dating, not officially at least - James had learnt that Q was mildly obsessed with Guillaume Lien's writing: he had two whole shelves dedicated to him and he seemed to own at least two copies of every novel; some looked pretty worn down, while others were newer editions.

It only made sense that James gifted Q with a copy of his new novel, considering just how important he had become to him; Q's challenging banter and his friendship had gotten him through the whole Skyfall cock-up and Spectre's mess of a mission: like a personal sun, Q made him feel warm and loved - cared for in a way he had forgotten how it felt like.

If he hadn't signed all the copies of the first edition, James would have never been able to explain away why he had managed to get Q such a special copy - not without outing himself and that definitely wasn't something he was keen on happening. It wasn't that he was ashamed of his writing - maybe he had been in the beginning - but it still something intimate for James: something that would have given Q the key to read him.

To read his heart.

"It's just a book"

Q shook his head, unable to take the eyes off of the glossy cover "You know it's more than that for me" he said, voice breathy with awe as he skimmed a trembling digit over the embossed title; a grin slowly tugged up the corners of his lips: _Lost In Istanbul_ \- it was as corny as ever and it filled Q with a sense of.. happiness. Despite the long silence, it seemed that Guillaume hadn't changed at all and Q could already imagine how it would feel starting to read those pages: like slipping into his favourite sweater, old and worn but still warm.

"I just know that he's your favourote author" James shrugged.

"He's more than that"

Well.. That was interesting "How so?" James climbed on the edge of Q's desk, swiping to the side a pile of paperwork so that he wouldn't wrinkle it.

Q smiled fondly at the book, forcing himself to look up at the agent; if was the least he could do after such a thoughtful gift - a gift that had managed to rekindle in him the childlike passion for his job in just a few seconds "He's one of the reasons why I decided to work for MI6"

"I thought that it was either working for us or ending up in prison"

Q still blushed at the memory, a little ashamed about the fact he had gotten caught "Yes. But if I hadn't read his books and hadn't fallen in love with the world depicted in them, I suspect I would have ran away - or I would have tried, at least" he doubted that he would have managed to escape MI6 - especially back then, when he hadn't had even a little bit of training.

"That's fascinating" very much so "I'm happy you liked your gift"

"You don't know how much, James" Q admitted "More than words can say"

James reached out and took Q's bony hand, thumb caressing the knobby knuckles "You don't need to" he reassured with a tender smile "I can see it in your eyes"

"Let's have dinner tonight"

James shook his head "Read the book: I know you're eager to get started on it. We can have dinner when you're done"

"I'll blabber about it endlessly once I'm done" the younger man admitted, flushing darkly; in that moment, despite the fact that they weren't exactly officially dating, Q wished he could bend down and kiss the agent.

"Good" James smiled "I look forward to it" more than Q could imagine.

* * *

It was the first time in quite long that Q left work on time when his shift ended and rushed home, eager to change into a nice pair of pyjamas and curl up with the book in his hands and the cats cuddled up in his side.

Was it sad that reading a pulpy spy novel was the highlight of his day?

Maybe - honestly Q didn't care much about what people would think: just the anticipation of doing so made him happy and that was the most important thing; he led a very stressful life and worked himself to the bone to make sure that Queen and Country and countless people were safe, Q thought he deserved to take pleasure in the little things that could make him relax - even if just for a few hours.

"Hello, lovelies" Q greeted his cats, kneeling down to pet them and revelling in the affection they poured on him with their purring and meowing "Let's eat and then cuddle up"

Q basically scarfed down his dinner - cheese toasties and tomatoes - and then he made himself some tea before sitting on the couch; he was excited, he could feel it thrumming under his skin and the bright smile on his face almost hurt.

He was so happy he could cry.

Q opened the book -

_To my fans: thank you for waiting for me_

\- finally.

_Bel Rowley braked the car and turned to look at the agent sitting next to her, quickly drawing out her gun and pointed it at the smug face staring at her "Say that again"_

_Richard arched an eyebrow, completely nonplussed by the mouth of the gun trained in the middle of his forehead: if the junior agent knew how many much worse things he had had to stare down to and endure in his career, she would have ran for the hills "You drive like shit" Richard repeated, leaning back against the seat as he tilted up his chin in a defiant manner._

_It took more than a woman who was setting foot in the field for the first time to scare him and make him shake in his finely tailored suit._

_Bel scowled, her grip on the handle of the gun so strong that her arm trembled - if she could just punch the stupid blond in the face..._

Control yourself, Bel. Control yourself.

_She upholstered her gun and undid the belt before she pushed the door open and climbed out of the car "You drive, then"_

Prick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lovely @linorien on tumblr has made for me some amazing covers for James' novels - please, go and give her some love:
> 
> https://sunaddicted.tumblr.com/post/176515495603/spiritofcamelot-twice-dead-in-moscow-doe
> 
> https://sunaddicted.tumblr.com/post/176515491253/spiritofcamelot-the-south-american-triangle
> 
> https://sunaddicted.tumblr.com/post/176267866368/spiritofcamelot-murder-amidst-the-dunes-richard
> 
> https://sunaddicted.tumblr.com/post/176267827418/spiritofcamelot-an-austrian-conspiracy-the-sun
> 
> https://sunaddicted.tumblr.com/post/176267803008/spiritofcamelot-its-never-paris-during-every


	5. Dinner With Surprise

_Dinner With Surprise_

Q had devoured the novel with the same enthusiasm of his youth, he had stayed up the whole night - something James most definitely would nag him about, reminding him that he needed the rest and couldn't survive on tea and sweets alone (and Q would argue that he definitely could because that had been his recipe to survive university) - and he didn't care that his eyes started burning and turning red sometime around 3 am, nor that the book wouldn't disappear in a puff of smoke if he put it down even to catch a little catnap: he'd been waiting for those words for so long, unconsciously hadn't given up yet on Guillame Lien and those stories that managed to captivate him and didn't let him go for hours. 

There were differences, of course.

As a long time fan who had obsessively re-read all of the novels since discovering him, Q easily noticed that some things in the way the other man wrote had changed: for starters, the author sounded even more disenchanted with the world of spying than he already had - once again, he wondered about whether Lien was entangled with it in some way or another; the secondary characters were surprisingly rounded - an ensemble of regulars that would appear again in following novels? Someone like Bel Rowley couldn't be restricted to just one appereance; it was a lot less straight - finally. 

Q had loved every single word of it - he had laughed and tensed up and cheered and scowled, going through more emotions than he normally would in the span of one night - and if those were the results of a long hiatus, he would wait again for another of Lien's novels to grace his bookshelves with their ridiculous titles and covers that just after a glance made his mind wander and get lost into fictional missions that somehow, despite retaining a veneer of credibility to them, they still managed to uplift his spirit with their stretched happy endings. 

James was going to kiss him into shutting up, once he started blabbering during dinner and Q wouldn't blame him.

Plus, James' kisses weren't exactly something one could turn their noses up at: they were slow and searing, coaxing arousal into being with a mastery that made Q's knees shake and his skin break out in goosebumps even if he felt like he was burning - if he could have gotten away with it, Q would have spent hours just getting snogged stupid by his lover.

Alas, he had a world to save, two cats that needed to be fed and a mortgage to pay: he just couldn't afford spending a considerable chunk of his time climbing James Bond like a tree, no matter that the other man was unbearably sexy and Q had quite the healthy sex drive. 

He pushed open the door of James' flat, dropping his spare keys in the dish at the entrance: the thought of James purposefully purchasing it to make him stop trying to ruin the finish of the wooden table always tore a giddy smile out of him; his presence had tangibly impacted the other's home, if he needed a reassurance about his place in James' life he only had to look at the little signs scattered around the flat "Hello!"

No answer came but Q wasn't too worried: he could hear the noise of the shower running and James had warned him that he would probably be in the bathroom when he arrived.  Which was why Q had opted for getting takeaway, rather than being entrusted with cooking dinner: he could feed himself decently but the ultra modern appliances James owned were mildly intimidating - was there really the need for so many different fancy knives? - and his lover had more refined tastes than he did.

Q snorted at the thought of James sipping his chardonnay while he ate clumpy mac 'n' cheese; while not a five-starred meal, the spread of thai food he had acquired from their favourite takeaway place would definitely offer a better match. It was a matter of a few moments to spread everything out on the small breakfast table James stubbornly didn't want to switch for a bigger one and like all the other times he had time to waste while he waited for the other man, Q attacked one of the storage boxes that James seemed to be making constantly appear out of thin air.

He sat down on the luxurious carpet he had unpacked just the week before - he couldn't believe James had kept such a precious object in storage for so long, just because he couldn't be assed to get his things in order - and tugged closer a box that looked even older than the ones he had already tackled: it was dusty and darkened by water stains which made Q ardently hope that there wasn't anything particularly delicate inside because it surely was ruined. Wishing he had gloves on hand after seeing spots of mould, Q flipped the box open and groaned loudly when he saw that it was filled with paper - documents that needed sorting through and that probably had some kind of value, even if James had completely forgotten about them.

Though, it wasn't a job he could do on the carpet - not after threatening James of bodily harm if he bled on it. 

Q moved to a leftover uncovered spot of the floor and grabbed the first pile, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the damp paper; the ink had completely melted away, leaving behind watery blotches and echoes of words now unitelligible.

Well, headed for the trash it was then. 

His fingers closed around a bound notebook next and Q hoped that the thick leather would have managed to protect the pages and whatever writing might have been in there; he opened it in the middle and was surprised to recognise James' handwriting - he had expected the journal to be a relic of a much older generation.

The sight was enough to make Q hesitate: he didn't want to intrude on his lover's privacy but James would have told him to leave the box alone if it held something he didn't want him to see, right? Q licked his lower lip and looked up in the direction of the bathroom; it didn't seem like James was any closer to being done, he must have caught him when he had just begun his shower. 

They would have to reheat the food. 

Trudging over the flickering of guilt that curled in his stomach, Q lowered his gaze once again and looked at the smudged handwriting that he knew so well, down to the squiggly Ts that James produced only when he was annoyed by what he was writing. 

_...the bullet zipped past Richard's head, buzzing like an insistent mosquito, and it hit the window behind his back._

_He couldn't not approve of the satisfying way the stained glass exploded, even if he had been the target of the shot and one of the shards shredded open his jacket where it was stretched over his bicep._

_Better a visit to the tailor than to the morgue, he supposed._

_Richard tightened his grip on the butt of the gun and after firing a warning shot, there was no time for precision or he would have made sure to put a bullet between the other's eyes, he vaulted off of the railing of the stairs._

_It wasn't a high jump._

_Much._

_He grunted when his feet touched the ground, the impact reverberating up his legs_

"Hello, sweetheart"

Q had never found so hard tearing his eyes off of a page when there was the promise of seeing James clad only in a towel, skin still beaded with water but he had to "You"

"Me?" James arched an eyebrow and padded closer to the younger man, curious to see what had put such a bewildered expression on his face "Oh..." shit: his secret was out; he had never wasted much time brooding over how he would react if his career as a novelist was ever found out by one of his colleagues and friends, but he certainly wouldn't have predicted that his heart started trying to beat its way out of his chest "Yes, definitely me"

"You're Guillame Lien"

"Actually, is the other way around"

"Semantics" Q scrambled to his feet and pushed the notebook into the other's chest, fingers digging gauges in the ruined leather "Is this... you know, the real deal?"

"It's the first draft of _An Austrian Conspiracy_ , yes"

"Oh. My. God"

James couldn't quite tell if Q was having a religious experience or if he was just gathering his strength to sock him in the face "Love?"

Everything was clear now: the long hiatus, the feeling that those stories were told by somebody who knew, the change of tone in the last novel... Q could retrace all of his lover's career now that he knew what to look for, that the connection had been revealed "I sent you fan mail once"

James hated the fact that he could feel himself blush "It should still be in the box then"

"I doubt it" Q shook his head "You stopped writing immediately before or after I sent it" an incredulous giggle escaped his mouth "I offered to tell you everything about technology that you clearly didn't get"

"Well.. that sounds 100% like you" James snorted "Are you angry I didn't tell you?"

Q shook his head "No, I'm not" but he couldn't understand why the other man had kept it a secret when he had only ever sung the writer's praises. 

"Can I get my pants on, then?"

"If you must" he sighed dramatically "Though, I hope you know I'm going to be even more insufferable now and that you'll have to answer to all my questions"

"There's nothing I'd rather do for my number one fan"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand it's done! I'm so sorry for taking this long to finish it and thank you so much for sticking with me!

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: Guillaume Lien is the literal French translation of James Bond
> 
> Irma Bunt is a villain from the short story "Blast from the Past" by Raymond Benson; in the story, she tries to kill Bond using a straight razor coated in the poison of a Japanese pufferfish.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Book covers for "Blank Space"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17975210) by [Linorien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linorien/pseuds/Linorien)




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